


Cornerstones

by Jayne L (JayneL)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 10:06:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayneL/pseuds/Jayne%20L
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I could feel this hole opening up, right at the heart of me--where the person I'd built my life around wasn't, anymore."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cornerstones

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through 7.23, with nodding awareness of certain Sam-related hints from s8 spoilers.

It's been a long time since Jody last woke in the night to quiet sounds of distress from down the hall. Nevertheless, instinct and habit have her out of bed before she's completely awake, and by the time she remembers it's not her little boy making those soft, sleep-shattering gasps and whimpers, she's already stepped on the squeaky floorboard outside the guest room's door. At the sharp whine under her foot, the quality of the not-silence from Owen's old room changes--sounds stifled under a sudden weight of alertness--and there's no point in pretending not to have heard.

"Sam," she says, low and sleep-rough, "you all right?"

She hears him breathe; then, less a word than another breath caught on some consonants: "Dammit." Then, a click, and warm light spills out through the space between door and jamb. Jody figures that for her invitation, and pushes gently into the room.

Sam's already sitting up, his back to the headboard, the set of his broad shoulders tight and troubled. His hands aren't shaking as he drags them through his sweat-damp hair, then down over his face, but Jody can see the tension in them too, in the spread and clutch of his long fingers as he scrapes himself more fully awake. "Sorry," he grates out, scrubbing at his eyes one last time before he drops his hands heavily into his lap. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"I'm just glad I could return the favour. Sounded like you needed it." Sam huffs his agreement, his mouth quirking humourlessly. Last night--the first night he spent in her spare room--he'd collapsed on top of the covers and slept long and hard and deep, like he hadn't gotten his head down in a month. Now, Jody looks at the defeated shadows under his eyes and wonders just how exhausted he must've been, for his worry and fear and loss to have allowed him that one full night of rest.

There's a short stack of old, thick books on the night table; another, taller stack on the floor, topped with a battered notepad and pen. Jody can just make out Sam's angular writing on the open page of the pad: his notes, whatever they were, are illegible now, obscured by harsh, frustrated scribbles. Since Sam appeared on her doorstep not-exactly-asking to look through the satellite branch of Bobby's library she's been keeping in her garage, he's been much quieter than he was when his brother was only lost in time: this time, his words and silences both carry a much sharper, barely-sheathed edge. Jody had assumed the search for Dean wasn't going well; here, in the yellow light of the bedside lamp shining softly in the middle of the night--in Sam's useless notes and his sleeplessness and his almost tangible aura of heartbreaking, driven desperation--is the proof that it isn't.

She ambles the few steps it takes to reach the bed and sinks down to sit on the edge of the mattress. When Sam slants her a look, she catches and holds his gaze. "You want to talk about it?"

He blinks at her like she's said something amazing; then he looks away, shaking his head, with another of those punched-out breaths that's not really a laugh. "Everything Dean's been through," he says, wry over some deep well of affection and exasperation and resignation, "everything we've both been through--Dean never talks about any of it. Never lets himself. He shoves it down, and shoves it down, and he drinks, and he hunts in the stupidest, most reckless ways possible, and he never--" He cuts himself off, one hand rising curtly only to fall again, purposeless. The approximation of a smile fades from his face. "You'd think that's what the nightmares would be about. Where he might have gone, what might be happening to him. What he might be doing to himself."

Jody hears the guilt there, furtive and aching. She thinks she can guess where it's coming from. With care, she prompts, "What are the nightmares about?"

Sam looks up again, right at her, urgently. Wanting to explain, she thinks; to make sure she understands. Because, of course, he thinks she doesn't. "I want him back. I want it so much I--" His gaze falters with his words, but Jody's seen enough of the Winchester boys--heard enough from Bobby--to have a pretty good idea how much love is behind that kind of speechlessness. She watches, waiting patiently, as his ferocity and defensiveness give way to something plaintive and ashamed. "But in the dreams," he admits finally, "when I get him back. I hug him, and it's like I'm suffocating."

He presses his lips together tightly once he's said it, turns his face away and goes still like he's waiting for judgement.

Jody covers his hand with hers. He startles at the touch; she curls her fingers around his and squeezes, holds on while she waits for him to turn to her again. "When Owen died the first time," she begins, matter-of-fact because that's the only way she can ever talk about any of this, "it was because he was crossing the street when an idiot on a cell phone tried to pass his stopped school bus. He was in a coma for almost a month before his brain died, before there wasn't any point anymore to keeping his body alive with all those machines--" Her voice breaks, her composure tested by the memory and Sam's steady, if puzzled, sympathy. She swallows the waver, rubbing her thumb distractedly across the thin skin on the back of Sam's hand while she re-forms her thoughts. "Sean and I, we both wanted kids, but when I got pregnant, it wasn't planned. Sean had just been laid off, and I'd just been promoted, and it wasn't--" It's her turn to huff out a laugh; a real one, because she's had more than enough time and experience to get the right perspective on those few months of personal drama. "Anyway. I rebuilt my life around that kid, because I loved him. For six years, I kept on building my life around him. And then, suddenly, he was in that coma. And even though I hoped, I _prayed_ for him to wake up..."

Recognition lights in Sam's eyes. His hand moves under hers, and then their palms are pressed together, and then he's holding onto her as tightly as she's gripping him. "The longer the coma lasted," Jody goes on, because this is the first time she's said any of this aloud, and she needs to, now, she needs to finish, "the more I started to worry that he _would_. I could feel this hole opening up, right at the heart of me--where the person I'd built my life around wasn't, anymore--and I was afraid that, if Owen woke up, he'd be in a different shape. One that wouldn't fit that empty space, even if I rebuilt everything around it all over again. I was afraid that getting him back wouldn't make anything better for any of us." She smiles then, small and wobbly and unable to help herself. "And hey, three years later, it turned out that was a completely valid fear, after all." It's a shaky joke, in horrible taste, but it lightens the weight of confession thickening the air and surprises a snort of genuine, shocked amusement out of Sam. Jody's smile steadies. "It's okay to want things to be better than they are, Sam."

He sighs--"Yeah, I know."--but his gaze slides past her, becoming distant. He still sounds guilty. "It's just--it's been a while since I really believed that."

Jody counts the weeks: it's been just over a month since whatever went down at SucroCorp, since Dean went missing. Just a little longer than it was between Owen's accident and the pronouncement of his brain death. It's not the first time Sam's been forcibly separated from his brother; from certain elliptical references scrawled in the margins of some of Bobby's books, Jody's pretty certain it's not even the longest amount of time the Winchesters have had to survive apart and unsure. But here and now, with Sam's hand slackening in hers, his eyes shadowed purple with exhaustion, his strong body freighted with unhappiness, she can tell he's close to done: on the cusp of accepting that this time, he might not get Dean back. Starting to let himself think about the things that could be different without him, the things that might even be better. Hating himself for needing, or wanting, that traitorous kind of comfort.

It's been years since she was where he is, but Jody's heart swells with familiarity. The impulse to soothe spills through her chest, warm and anxious; without pausing to think about it, she leans in and presses a gentle kiss to Sam's cheek.

His breath seizes at the touch of her lips, hitches quietly in his throat. His hand tenses; his whole body tenses, radiating alertness, as if he's not sure what to expect after such a soft gesture. Carefully--wondering how, exactly, she managed to spook him--Jody starts to pull away.

Sam stops her, kissing her mouth with an intensity like electricity shocking deep in her bones. His massive hands are on her before she can think, holding her effortlessly: one slides into her hair, long fingers curving and flexing around the shape of her skull; the other splays on the small of her back, broad and solid and pulling her close. It's incredible, searing and heady, all Sam's heat and hunger and need arrowing straight into her, and for a long moment, Jody lets herself be dizzy with it: the smooth, hot push of Sam's tongue slipping between her lips; the dig of his fingertips into the bare skin of her back, just under the hem of her tank top; the beautiful shape of his body and drum of his heart under his thin t-shirt, pressing against her.

But under everything that feels good about this--that feels _amazing_ , that Jody's been far too long without, that could distract her, easily, into making one hell of a mistake--there's a dissonance, subtle but wrong. The way Sam's gaze was shuttered before she kissed him. The way the rough little noises he makes deep in his throat sound torn out of him, broken and painful. The way he clutches at her: not like a lover, but like the ground's shifting beneath his feet and she's the only solid thing within reach.

Regretfully, Jody murmurs Sam's name into his mouth, works her hands up between them and pushes on his chest as she leans back against his grip. To her surprise, his hard, seemingly implacable hands relax immediately, letting her pull back without resistance. She doesn't go far, and catches his eyes as soon as he drags them open. "Hey," she says, calm and steady and with her hands curling slowly into his shirt over his rabbiting heart. "Whatever you think you need from me right now--you'll probably feel differently in the morning."

His breath stutters again; his eyes, gone hazy with sex, clear. For a moment, he just looks at her; then the hand on her back rubs a small, deliberate circle, and he nods, and he lets her go. "Yeah," he breathes, and a note of the wryness is back, and the affection, and the resignation. "Maybe. Sorry. I'm--sorry, Jody."

"Don't be." With a wry, affectionate, resigned smile of her own, Jody releases his shirt and gives him a reassuring pat. She likes Sam; he's smart and determined, loyal and kind, gorgeous and a little broken, and if she were ten years younger, he'd have seriously turned her head. As it is, ever since they spent that night saving Dean from Chronos, she's idly flattered herself with the occasional fantasy that Sam might like her, too, for more than just her friendly badge and storage space.

He's a good guy, and he's alone, and tonight, he needed her. She's not going to blame him for getting a little carried away. Especially since he delivered her a bit of wish-fulfillment in the process.

After a moment to make sure her legs will work, she stands. "Get some rest, okay?"

He nods again, gamely. "I'll do my best."

Jody turns to leave, then hesitates. Before any second thoughts can dissuade her, she turns back, leans down, and kisses Sam's forehead.

He goes quietly still. She straightens up.

Just as she's slipping out into the darkness of the hallway, she hears him: "Thanks, Jody."

She goes back to bed.

* * *

The next morning, Jody wakes to the smell of coffee and bacon wafting tantalisingly through the house. When she pads into the kitchen, Sam smiles at her from the stove, warm and easy and maybe just a little sheepish.

As it turns out, Sam makes a mean poached egg. Jody's mopping up the last of her yolk with a corner of toast when he says, "I don't feel differently." She looks up: he's watching her over his glass of orange juice. "Just...thought you should know."

Jody's never seen him look more relaxed, or settled in his skin. Rested.

She lets him pour her another cup of coffee.


End file.
